Monthly Archives: October 2026

Unknown's avatar

Spanberger’s energy plan dazzles – and disappoints

by
solar panels on a school roof
Rooftop solar gets a boost in the 2026 Energy Plan, potentially leading to more installs like that on Wilson Middle School in Augusta County. Photo courtesy of Secure Futures.

Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s energy plan, released October 1, is a marvel of earnestness and hard work. Anyone plowing through its 180 pages of text and appendices can’t help but be impressed with the level of detail and the thoroughness of its coverage.

The Department of Energy even acquired the same modeling software used by Dominion Energy and ran its own scenarios. And unlike Dominion, the administration took the goals of the Virginia Clean Economy Act seriously.

It’s an impressive effort, and the result surely has to be considered the new gold standard for Virginia energy plans, which have seldom even met statutory requirements. Take a bow, Virginia Energy staff and chief Energy Officer Josephus Allmond; you deserve it.

And yet.

If the plan’s central purpose is to demonstrate that Virginia doesn’t need to tamp down the growth of data centers to preserve energy affordability for residents and achieve the decarbonization goals of the VCEA, it fails.

The plan acknowledges that “rapid data center load growth is driving grid infrastructure constraints and higher costs.” Yet that unconstrained load growth is subjected to scrutiny only as to the accuracy of the forecasts, not to consider throttling back the growth.

Indeed, the plan hypothesizes that data centers will spend more on power than utilities will spend on infrastructure, an assertion the governor repeated last week at the Virginia Clean Energy Summit in Richmond.

From this calculation flowed her equally questionable argument that a future with more data centers will mean lower costs – the reverse of what the plan admits is happening now.

Providing enough clean energy cheaply to meet this load is a really hard circle to square, though the plan describes a few pathways heading in the right direction.

It identifies a lengthy list of ways to eliminate energy waste and smooth demand spikes, many of which have already been set in motion with 2026 legislation. (There is certainly room for improvement; the web site WalletHub just ranked Virginia 35th out of 48 states on energy efficiency.)

The plan also makes a strong case for energy storage and distributed generation as a way to harness private investment and make the grid more efficient, secure and resilient.

It recognizes the huge potential for solar on public buildings, currently held hostage to the interconnection barriers Dominion Energy erected. It also calls out Dominion for the high price tag on its clean energy projects and proposes a state-led renewables marketplace to bring the power of competition to bear on purchasing. And it suggests interesting interim solutions like fuel cells that could replace dirty diesel generators at data centers.

Certainly, it could go further. The governor could, for example, throw her weight behind a stronger residential building code and creation of an independent energy utility like Vermont’s to consolidate programs and maximize energy savings for residents.

The problem remains that all the efficiency, distributed generation and grid management in the world can’t get us out of the hole that data center demand is digging for us. We’re going to need a lot more generation, and if we also need it to be cheap and clean, we need a lot more utility-scale solar.

That brings me to my criticism of the energy modeling done by Virginia Energy’s staff, apart from its failure to include a scenario that limits data center growth. It imposes a cap on the amount of solar energy that the model was allowed to choose to achieve least-cost pathways for meeting demand. Without this artificial cap, it’s safe to say, the model would have selected a lot more cheap-and-easy solar paired with storage.

Doing so would have undercut a claim we are already hearing from Republicans, that if we would just leave climate and health costs out of the equation — and ignore turbine shortages, pipeline constraints, and fuel price volatility — building more fossil gas plants would come out as the cheapest option. A picture of what solar could do if we let it would rebut that argument.

That the model instead imposed a cap reveals Spanberger’s own ambivalence about utility solar. The administration takes it as a given that the current resistance to utility solar in many rural counties will persist even in the face of the declining farm income that makes solar one of the few lifelines available to struggling landowners. The plan mentions agrivoltaics approvingly but misses its transformational potential.

The plan could have proposed education and incentives to bring solar and agriculture together for the mutual benefit of both. Instead, it treats utility-scale solar as a regrettable necessity we should minimize. It’s an odd capitulation to solar NIMBYs from a governor who barely acknowledges the far greater public hostility to data centers.

Limiting utility-scale solar hamstrings the modeling effort. Even the addition of a lot more offshore wind, which is assumed to happen once President Donald Trump exits the stage, leaves us short of what’s needed to meet a massive increase in data center load.

Unwilling to check the growth of data centers, committed to defending the VCEA and wary of expanding energy imports, Spanberger isn’t left with a lot of great options. So, like so many governors before her, she puts her faith in nuclear.

Apparently, the best thing about the new small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) under development today is that they are still a long way from commercial viability. That excuses leaders from having to immediately grapple with the realities of cost, siting, safety, security and waste. People can just imagine SMRs will be the perfect power source.

I am reminded of friends who joke that their retirement plan is winning the lottery. Fortunately, my friends know not to bank on it.

Spanberger proposes to bank on it, and to pass the cost of the lottery tickets on to the public. The energy plan has numerous suggestions for ways Virginia can help develop nuclear energy, all to be paid for by Virginia residents.

The worst proposal involves revising our renewable portfolio standard to make new nuclear an eligible technology. It’s yet another blow to solar, which Virginia has already made more expensive to develop in a way no other state has done (looking at you, House Bill 206).

The plan’s enthusiasm for nuclear even extends to conventional large light-water reactors. Recall that Dominion pulled the plug on its proposal for a third, 1500-MW light-water reactor at North Anna in 2017, when the total cost to ratepayers had hit $19 billion (about $26 billion in today’s dollars). There is a reason nuclear companies want their projects subsidized, and a reason the rest of us should be wary of being the ones doing it.

Really, when you consider it, wouldn’t it be better just to slow the growth of data centers?

Originally published in the Virginia Mercury on October 16, 2026.

Want to offset your carbon footprint but can’t put solar on your home? Help us put solar on a Virginia non-profit! Norfolk Solar Solutions uses your tax-deductible donations to provide resiliency and energy savings to community-serving nonprofits across the commonwealth. Contribute to one of our projects under development or talk to us about other ways you can help.

Unknown's avatar

The simple affordability fix Virginia just can’t seem to make

by
A house under construction in McLean, VA
Photo by Ivy Main

Across the political spectrum, people who do the math come up with the same answer: the cheapest kilowatt-hour is the one you don’t need to use. A well-insulated building outfitted with LED lighting and energy-efficient appliances saves money for occupants over time even when upfront costs are higher.

It’s astounding, then, that Virginia’s residential building code treats these elements as optional luxuries rather than as basic standards that all home buyers and renters should expect, even – or perhaps especially – in an entry-level home. 

Key efficiency provisions of Virginia’s housing code have not been strengthened in a decade and a half, lagging far behind national model standards that many states regularly adopt each time the model standards are improved.  

Even more astounding, Virginia’s Board of Housing and Community Development (BHCD), which updates Virginia’s code every three years, is set to propose an “updated” building code with efficiency standards that lag even the 2012 edition of the national standards. 

The national model code is called the International Energy Conservation Code, or IECC. Its globalist name notwithstanding, it is overwhelmingly a U.S. standard and serves as the basis for the efficiency provisions of most state and local building codes. 

Every three years the International Code Council updates the IECC, almost always ratcheting up standards in line with improved technologies and capabilities.  

If you buy a new house in Maryland, which regularly adopts the latest IECC, you can be assured of a weather-tight home built to a solid efficiency baseline. Across the Potomac in Virginia, your new house is likely to be built to lower standards, even by the same builder. 

The builder may have saved a little money building the Virginia house, but whether you will save anything on the purchase price is questionable. As every buyer knows, supply and demand matter much more than a builder’s cost in determining how much you pay for your home.  

What is absolutely clear (and demonstrated by research in case the point isn’t sufficiently intuitive) is that you will spend more money over time to heat and cool and power a less efficient home. By the time you’ve paid off your mortgage, Virginia’s lax standards are likely to have cost you tens of thousands of dollars. 

Sure, once you’ve bought that Virginia home you can then spend more money to upgrade lighting and appliances and possibly do some extra weatherizing, assuming you are even aware that better performance is possible. But you’re pretty much stuck with whatever insulation the builder put into the walls. That’s why the time to maximize energy efficiency is when the home is being built, not later.  

What’s especially irritating is that Virginia’s failure to adopt higher standards comes in spite of the General Assembly’s efforts to raise the bar. Legislators are hesitant to wade into the minutia of building codes, but twice in the last ten years they have passed laws nudging the Board towards stronger energy conservation standards.  

Virginia law now calls for the Board to adopt a code that permits buildings to be “constructed, rehabilitated and maintained at the least possible cost consistent with recognized standards of health, safety, energy conservation and water conservation.” 

It instructs the Board to have “due regard” for the “generally accepted standards” recommended by the International Code Council and the National Fire Protection Association. (The fire standards have done very well as a result; the efficiency standards, not so much.) 

More pointedly, a 2021 act added a requirement that when the International Code Council issues an updated version of the IECC, the Board must consider adopting amendments to the Virginia building code that are “at least as stringent as” the provisions of the latest IECC. 

In doing so, the Board must assess “the public health, safety, and welfare benefits of adopting standards that are at least as stringent as those contained in the IECC, including potential energy savings and air quality benefits over time compared to the cost of initial construction.”

I’m sure the Board would say that it does consider these things, right before dismissing them. We should take that with a grain of salt; the BHCD has long been dominated by builder interests. 

And according to Bill Penniman, an activist and attorney who participates in the BHCD process, the board operates according to a rule it made up that says there must be “consensus” among the members of the various working groups that review the code before a more stringent provision makes the final cut. 

But, according to Penniman, the board defines “consensus,” to mean unanimity, and thus consensus is never reached in favor of strengthening energy conservation provisions because, again, builders and their allies dominate the process. (Interestingly, he notes, non-unanimous proposals to weaken the code don’t suffer a similar fate.)

And so, in spite of the law, Virginia’s wall insulation and air-leakage standards remain weaker than IECC standards from 2012, 2015, 2018, 2021 and 2024. 

Now, according to Penniman, the BHCD plans to submit to the governor proposed code amendments that once again fall short of even the 2012 IECC. At a July 13 meeting, the board rejected even an amendment offered by Penniman and other efficiency advocates that would have brought wall insulation requirements up to the IECC standard in effect from 2012 to 2018. 

Penniman says there will be a final vote in December before BHCD publishes the proposed rule for “updates” that will take effect in 2028. 

Having written on this topic before, I’ve heard from home builders who say that increasing the efficiency of new homes makes them too expensive for entry-level buyers. The choice, they say, is not between building homes to lower standards or higher standards, but between building them to lower standards or not at all.

If you really want to add to the housing stock, they urge, you need to make homes as cheap to build as possible, including skimping on energy-saving measures. And since it wouldn’t be fair to have higher standards for well-off buyers than for poorer folks, everyone alike must suffer from below-standard housing.  

Well, okay, they don’t put it in quite the same words I use, but so far they have won the argument at the Board. 

What is interesting here, however, is that while most homebuilders focus on maximizing profit by building as cheaply as possible, companies like Habitat for Humanity and Viridiant, which regularly serve low-income communities, consistently choose EarthCraft or Energy Star standards –  which both exceed code. They know a home isn’t affordable if the occupants can’t afford to pay for heat and electricity.

Clearly it is time for the governor to weigh in. Her just-released Energy Plan has a lot of welcome language on energy efficiency as well as other technologies that save money while lowering carbon emissions. (I’ll unpack it in more detail in a future column.) 

The plan leans in on the importance of home efficiency and touts state programs that provide support for retrofits of existing homes. But while it also notes that adopting the latest model building codes could yield billions of dollars in energy cost savings over the life of new homes, it does not actually call for Virginia to take that path. 

Residential heating and cooling is a significant expense for most households. An energy affordability agenda that leaves out home efficiency is one with a gaping hole in it.

First published in the Virginia Mercury on October 2, 2026.

Psst! Want to offset your carbon footprint but can’t put solar on your home? Help us put solar on a Virginia non-profit! Norfolk Solar Solutions uses your tax-deductible donations to provide resiliency and energy savings to community-serving nonprofits across the commonwealth. Check us out!